New baby, new habits: Our Afternoons
Good Morning, everyone! It is now 6:11 and I am writing my daily blog—Iris is here with me on the nursing pillow. Since it is weekend and my children will be with us all day, I can't be sure I will have a moment to be in front of the computer during the rest of the day. So... Now is the moment. Let's start! Let's do this! Yes!
Today I would like to share with you some of the activities I do with my children during our afternoons when they are back from Kindergarten. These actually help us all to be more creative, peaceful and productive. Here they are:
1. Drawing together
I love drawing and it is very easy to do it with kids, they love it too—specially when we draw on the same sheet together. And it is wonderful because when we are done I can take photos of it and then, I have plenty of original images for my blogs and videos.
2. Dancing together
I love to put the music I crave to start sensing in the room and let my body move with the rhythm of the sensational sounds surrounding me—such a wonderful feeling... I often start by just putting my music on and trying to dance my way on my own... But many times, when my children realize I am starting a dancing session, they just go crazy and quickly ask me to change the song and put one of their CDs instead—and they don't always agree on which CD... Anyway, once we all agree on the audio—and it always happens, at some point—we start our kind of "group" prancercising—"group" because we are holding each other most of the time and "prancercising" because we are all kind of moving with some music on. Anyhow, we end up exercising and having fun together, which is great!
3. Reading stories
My children—most children and most adults too—just love hearing stories. We have a bunch of children books with all kinds of stories: traditional, modern, from all over the world and in many languages—basically Catalan, Spanish, English, French, German and Italian, even Arabic, but we can't read that one yet. They just pick one of the books and I start reading out loud for them on the sofa. They enjoy it and I practice my vocabulary and pronunciation in the many languages I want to maintain and perhaps use in my creations. It is my best opportunity to improve my oral English, which I need for my vlogging.
4. Recording videos
I love to create videos with my children, and I would love to create fun videos with them on my channel. It is a brand new activity for us, we are still working on it, but we will get better at it and I hope you will all see the results and our improvements soon. Fun, creative and productive—not so peaceful, though...
5. Going outdoors
Going outdoors is so healthy for us, humans. And having kids can be such an opportunity for us adults to actually spend more time in nature. Let's just try to do it as often as possible. In our case, we live in an apartment—no yard—, but we have plenty of parks and playgrounds in our neighborhood and there is even an organic farm—that we love—, 20 minutes walk from our home. My husband and/or I bring the kids outdoors as often as possible to ground ourselves and enjoy our surroundings together.
6. Cleaning "together"
In the afternoons, if our energies are aligned with the cleaning spirits, I manage to check all the pending house chores while the kids play together or in between our activities. It is like magic—very exhausting magic—but magic all the same. When we are not aligned, I just don't even try to clean—something I've learned after many failed attempts—; on those occasions, I just play with the kids and follow their lead—until my husband is back and helps me out.
Here are six activities I am sure you have already tried with your kids, but that I might have helped you embrace and enjoy them better. I wish you all a wonderful day and I thank you so much for being here. Love to all!